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98 March 2014

When singer-songwriter Janis Ian wanted a new guitar in 1978, she

looked to Lloyd Baggs. Known today as an innovative designer of

acoustic-guitar pickups and electronics—most guitarists are

familiar with his L.R. Baggs brand—he was, at the time, a successful luthier

whose forward-thinking guitar designs had caught the fancy of such players as

Jackson Browne, Ry Cooder, and Graham Nash. Ian, best known for her 1967

ballad of interracial love, “Society’s Child,” and the 1975 megahit “At Seven-

teen” was looking for a small-bodied instrument with a scalloped fingerboard.

The resulting guitar, pictured here, ended up being No. 19 of the 32 guitars

Baggs built between the mid-’70s and 1982.

“I started using it as soon as I got it,” Ian remembers. “It’s the main acous-

tic single-line guitar throughout the [1979] Night Rains album, especially at

the end of ‘Have Mercy, Love.’ It has great vibrato!”

Even though the guitar looks like your standard 12-fret 00, it is actually

chock-full of design elements and ideas that were radical in the late ’70s and

that would even be unusual today. Among these is a neck with a fully scalloped

fingerboard and composite construction. Baggs hollowed out the rosewood neck

(“like a canoe,” he says) until all that was left was a 1/8-inch thick skin. Into this

channel, he laminated alternating pieces of 1/8-inch thick spruce and .015-inch

sheets of carbon graphite.

“This makes for an extremely stiff and stable neck with a resonant fre-

quency above the highest fundamental,” Baggs says. “Consequently, there are

no dead notes on the neck.”

The guitar has a spruce top and South American rosewood back and sides.

Baggs attached the top to the rim using the traditional Spanish method of

individual blocks, rather than kerfing; he says the Spanish method leads to less

stress. The guitar’s top is braced with a modified fan pattern, with a cross-

brace sharply angled toward the treble side. “This gave enough stiffness to

support the trebles, and allowed the bass side some extra flexibility for good

low-end response,” Baggs says.

The instrument’s headstock inlay was inspired by Chinese artist Chang

Dai-chien and executed in abalone. French polished, and outfitted with an L.R.

Baggs LB6 pickup and Micro Drive preamp, it was a frequent partner for Ian’s

performances, both live and in the studio. “I also used it on the next two

albums, Restless Eyes [in 1981] and Uncle Wonderful [1983], and on the road

through that period,” she says. AG

Teja Gerken is a contributing editor to Acoustic Guitar and a performing musician.

You Might Know This Luthier Before He Was L.R. Baggs Singer & songwriter Janis Ian’s 1978 Baggs is chock-full of design surprisesBY TEJA GERKEN

Janis Ian

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